1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a frame structuring device and a frame structuring method in which FEC (Forward Error Correction) applied to a digital communication device such as an optical communication system is used.
2. Description of the Related Art
In conventional FEC frame structuring devices and methods, a method in which a Reed-Solomon (RS) error correction code is used in an OTUk (Optical channel Transport Unit-k) frame is applied (see, for example, ITU-T Recommendation G.709).
Another method is also proposed in which an OTUk frame is distributed to four lanes by using a 64B/66B transmission code so as to be transmitted by an optical interface including four wavelengths (see, for example, OIF-VSR5-01.0).
In the conventional FEC frame structuring devices and methods, the method using an OTUk frame assumes an optical interface of one wavelength and thus cannot handle optical interface including a plurality of lanes. Furthermore, although the method using the 64B/66B code can distribute an OTUk frame to plural lanes independently of any FEC frame, this causes an undesired increase in a processing speed by about 3%. Accordingly, power consumption and circuit scale are increased and transmission characteristics are deteriorated.
The present invention has been achieved to solve the above problems, and it is an object of the present invention to realize an FEC frame structuring device and an FEC frame structuring method that can handle optical interface including plural lanes and prevent an unnecessary increase in the processing speed that can be a factor of deteriorated transmission characteristics, to thereby provide a high-quality and high-speed optical communication system.